Find a Production

Trouble with Merle, The

Year of completion: 2002
Content type: Documentary
Format: Short
Genre: Arts, Culture
Duration: 55 minutes
Production Status: Completed

Merle Oberon was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1930s and 1940s. Studio publicists said she was born into a wealthy family in Hobart, Tasmania - Australia's island state. Yet rumour was that the exotic almond-eyed actress concealed her true past. It was said she was actually "oriental", perhaps Anglo-Indian, and born in Calcutta. In Tasmania, many remain convinced she was their island's most famous daughter, born not to wealthy parents but to a Chinese hotel worker and her married employer. THE TROUBLE WITH MERLE looks at celebrity, memory, identity, race and class... and at why Merle Oberon's origins mattered to people on a tiny island, in a country at the bottom of the world.

Completion Year: 2002
Genres: Arts, Culture
Format: Short
Production Status: Completed

Cast and Crew

Cast

Maree Delofski (narrator)

Awards

2003 — NSW Premier's Literary Awards – Script Writing Award

2003 — NSW Premier's History Awards – The Premier's Audio Visual History Prize

Screenings

2004 — Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short & Animation Films

2002 — Christchurch International Film Festival

2002 — Hawaii International Film Festival

2002 — New Zealand Film Festival

Sales

Australian Sales

National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

International Sales

National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

Production Company

Film Australia Limited

SeeView Pictures Pty Ltd

Trouble with Merle, The

Synopsis

Cast and Crew

Director

Writer

Executive Producer

Producer

Director of Photography

Cast

Awards

Screenings

Sales

Australian Sales

International Sales

Production Company

Related Productions

What Love Builds

Burabura

(Re)imagining Our Futures